TV veteran Gary Nelson ("Jimmy the Kid"/"Freaky
Friday") directs Disney's most costly production to
date (a budget of 20 million dollars) to compete
against such contemporary hits as Star Wars (1977) and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It's a film
noted for its great look (the set design by Peter
Ellenshaw uses painters like Chagall and Mondrian to
give it a modern look and for the stunning image of a
fiery meteor to keeps us in awe), holograms and
special effects, but is let down by the weak script by
Gerry Day and Jeb Rosebrook, stilted dialogue and a
murky climax. It's based on the story by Jeb
Rosebrook.

The crew of the research spaceship Palamino, the
no-nonsense authoritative Captain Dan Holland (Robert
Forster), the telepathic scientist with the robot
droids Dr Kate McRae (Yvette Mimieux), the curious
scientist Dr Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins), a reporter
named Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine), the exuberant
junior pilot Charles Pizer (Joseph Bottoms) and a
lively robot named Vincent (Roddy McDowall, voice of
Vincent), return from their failed space mission to
find habitable life in outer space and run across the
"lost'' ship U.S.S. Cygnus, hovering on the edge of an
immense black hole. They are forced aboard the ship by
a robot army, and once aboard they find the ship's
only human inhabitant is the bearded Dr. Hans
Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell), a Captain Nemo-like mad
scientist missing with his crew (including Kate's
scientist father) for the past twenty years who is
planning to enter the Black Hole; that is, despite the
dangers involved (whose gravitational pull allows
nothing to leave it), to find answers that have eluded
science. A conflict arises when the Palamino crew
wishes to repair its ship to go back to earth but the
tyrannical Reinhardt schemes to use that ship to help
him enter the Black Hole. Also the Palamino crew learn
how Reinhardt created a half-human/half-robot slave
ship and what really happened to his missing crew.

The film can be appreciated only on a technical
level. Otherwise the movie never inspires with its
insipid story (it takes the fun out of exploring outer
space), and when we wait for the big payoff of
entering the Black Hole--we are in for a big let down
if we expect the story to make sense.